The Last Anniversary
A new life in Washington D.C.
It was my wedding anniversary today.
Going through my photo library, I have many beautiful pictures of my wife, but the one I can’t get out of my head is the last one I ever took. She wore her favorite new white blouse. Her hair was brushed off her face. She had a dab of Chloe Love Story on both pale cheeks. She didn’t need a coat.
Michelle had already left on her final journey. She went alone.
It is a night that I cannot get past. I’m not even sure I want to yet. There was so much kindness amid the desolation.
I had never met the two hospice ladies who came to prepare Michelle for her departure. I probably won’t see them again. But I can still see their kind faces and quiet grace, taking charge when we were so lost in a moment you hope will never come.
The nurses shaking the rain from their hats and telling us there was no hurry. We could sit there all night if we wanted, and we did.
The funeral directors, soldiers of the dawn in jackets and ties, carrying her out into the light for the very final time. For some reason, it reminded me of the movie Men in Black at the time, and I don’t know why. Just so surreal.
Now all I have left is the photo.
I’m thinking about it now, but it’s too late in the day and too close to bedtime. I will look tomorrow, though.
I think it’s because I know she is gone, but I still can’t understand it. I lay beside her on so many nights, and we always woke up together. I know it’s not going to happen again. Maybe I’m just waiting for one more picture.
There will be a time when I will delete it or put it in a private folder to age softly with all my memories. But not yet. All the other photos of her are lovely. But they still don’t make sense to me without this one.
A few weekends ago, I attended the White House Correspondents Association dinner at the Hilton Hotel in DC. The custom is for the President of the United States to turn up and relax a little with the media. Maybe tell a few jokes and gently settle a few scores. But this was Donald Trump, so he never comes. He went to the Pope’s funeral that Saturday, but he never had any intentions of joining the “fake media.”
There was no comedian either because Amber Ruffin was canceled after telling Joanna Coles on our Daily Beast podcast that she would roast Trump despite being asked not to.
“What exactly do we do then?” I asked a colleague. Is there any dancing? Apparently not. It seems the score is that you go to three parties on the Friday night, a brunch on Saturday morning, a party before the dinner on Saturday night, and at least one afterward. At least, that’s what I did.
The first party seems so long ago that I can’t remember who threw it, but I remember the second one at the British Ambassador’s residence. The unlikely joint hosts were the Daily Mail, my old newspaper, and the Ambassador himself, Sir Peter Mandelson.
In the British media, we used to call him “Mandy” or “The Prince of Darkness” (but not to his face), and I was once sent to Rio de Janeiro (by the Mail) to try and chat with the family of his then, and still, charming boyfriend. I bumped into Peter several times over the weekend, but kept my Brazilian trip to myself. I never did find the boyfriend’s family, but I did meet Ronnie Biggs, the infamous Great Train Robber, who fled to Rio to escape Scotland Yard. It was a long time ago. You don’t get train robbers anymore.
There were a lot of people doing the party rounds, but not many from the admonistration. Dr Oz, the TV medic recently elevated to be RFK Jr.’s sidekick at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Sean Spicer, the mercifully brief Press Secretary from Trump’s first term, had a table in the corner at the embassy. No doubt they felt safer under the right wing of the Mail.
The star power at the late Friday night UTA party was low wattage. Best known was probably Jason Isaacs, Lucius Malfoy in Harry Potter, and the dad in the latest season of White Lotus. He was nice. And the manager lady without her cap from the Mrs Maisel series. She was probably nice, too, but I didn’t speak to her. I’m told there was a TV chef, although I didn’t recognize him. Dana Bash from CNN was there. I saw her so often that she likely thought I was stalking her.
All these parties had free bars. Strangely, nobody appeared overserved. If this were London, it would have been carnage.
On Saturday morning, the White House Correspondents Brunch was at the lovely home of former Washington Post owner Katherine Graham. It was a haunt of JFK and Jackie Kennedy, and Princess Diana was once a guest. That was when the Post truly stood for something. I said hello to Dana and Sir Peter and thought about starting the day with a coffee. Then a friendly soul approached with a tray of champagne, and it occurred to me that I could make myself a cup of coffee any morning, but how often would I drink bubbly at 10.30 am? Jason was back - we’re all on first-name terms now - and I notice that no one else among my party from the Daily Beast was instinctively saying yes to every drink, so I slowed down and made a mental note to pace myself.
Greta van Susteren was standing guard at the door. Her days of covering O.J. Simpson are long gone, but you get the sense she still likes to hold authority to account. There was a new yellow Corvette in the garden, and you could get in and start it up, but I was worried about the am champers. I wouldn’t put it past Sir Peter to snitch on me. He probably knew about Brazil. He knows everything.
Later, I lined up for the ABC News pre-party at the Hilton in my newly bought tux and floppy bow tie (I knew I should have bought the clip-on). It was decorated like a Eurotrash disco, and too dark for me to read the drinks menu, so we did a lap and headed for the main event. Sir Peter was on the stairs as we headed into the hall, chatting with the effervescent Tina Brown, who looked half her age in all white.
We had a great group and a lovely chat. Steak with strands of lobster cast over it (tasting as weird as it sounds) was on the menu. But the flavor of the night was entirely Democratic. The Trumpers were holding their anti-events elsewhere. Of course they were. Vitriol martinies. Shaken and stirred.
We were one of the few tables to host a MAGA influencer. She’d been warned not to go by colleagues who thought the wicked media wouldn’t be so nice, but she was fun and interesting and seemed to enjoy herself. Surely this was the correct way to engage. With friendship and humor.
There were a few speeches and some random awards, but nothing to write home about. Nobody mentioned Trump by name, but the author of a new book on Joe Biden did a good job of self-promotion by apologizing on behalf of the media for not revealing he was old. Honestly, it wasn’t a secret. We all watched the debate. But you had about as much chance of jettisoning a president with slow-onset dementia (and, as it turns out, cancer) as you do getting rid of one who is full-on demented.
I noticed on the way out how much booze there was left on the tables. No Jeremy Clarkson punch-ups with Piers Morgan here. All very civilised.
Once outside, we jumped in a shuttle bus with a couple of shiny TV anchors to the NBC After Party at the historic residence of the French Ambassador, a five-minute ride away.
This was undoubtedly the prize location. There was art and an espresso martini machine. I recognized a few people, but I was talked out by this stage. Just time for another glass of champagne. I said goodnight to Dana. And then to bed.
I walked past a restaurant in Washington’s Dupont Circle a few days ago, and there were six or seven Black and Hispanic men and women outside being interviewed by uniformed officers announcing themselves with big ICE initials on their backs.
The following evening, I was catching a flight at Ronald Reagan Airport in DC, and the shoeshine guy in the terminal, an elegant-looking elderly Hispanic gentleman with sad, kind eyes, was being interviewed by three ICE officers intently studying his identification papers.
A couple of days later, a colleague said her husband’s friend from South America had been detained at a traffic stop and was in ICE detention. He has a wife and children, all worried sick.
I read that Trump is threatening to sue ABC News for saying he was accepting a “free” plane from Qatar, as if it makes a difference whether the Qataris claim it’s for the Department of Defense or the president himself. They say the $400 million plane would cost $1 billion to break down and search for bugs.
Trump is correct on one thing: no gift like this will ever be for “free.”
He is banning and belittling the traditional media and replacing it with his right-wing mouthpieces soft pedaling questions and sucking up.
This is what dictators do. They bully and they intimidate.
They pay others, like Stephen Miller, to shout for them and like Karoline Leavitt to persuade.
And one day we will no longer be the land of the free.
We will have given all our freedoms away.
With barely a peep of protest.
I had so much hope in Barack Obama. I was so proud to live in a country that elected him president. A good man who spoke of ideals we could all believe in. Loving our neighbors, treating everyone with respect. Being just and true.
What happened to him? Where is he now?
“If I wanted to destroy a nation,” John Steinbeck wrote in 1960, “I would give it too much and have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.”
Trump is running a White House fueled by fear and greed. We may yet end up on our knees.
Maybe we already are.
I got married 35 years ago on the day of the FA Cup final in 1991 (Tottenham Hotspur beat Nottingham Forest 2-1). Looking back now, it was a lovely day, but it wasn’t what Michelle wanted. She didn’t need the fuss. She didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. She would have preferred a romantic ceremony on a warm beach.
Instead, we were married in a church we rarely visited on a windy May day in Essex.
I left her with our then-four-year-old son to look after while she got ready, and her mom accidentally stood on her dress. She was nervous that her absent dad was coming with his family, even though my dad was giving her away. In retrospect, it was all too complicated and too much.
Our wedding DJ had come out of retirement and only owned four records, three of which were ‘Vogue’ by Madonna.
A wedding can be the bride’s perfect day, but I don’t think it was for Michelle. She told me beforehand, but I didn’t listen. In some ways, it’s taken me all those 35 years of marriage to hear.
It was a memorable day in many ways, and the photos are a testament to her beauty. But I think her overriding emotion afterwards was relief.
We already had our son, Mickey. He was four when we married, and I realize now that Michelle made all the sacrifices. I put my job first, and she prioritized our baby. That was how it was back then. It doesn’t make it right.
She worked at Coutt’s Bank in London as a young mom, and she loved it in many ways, but couldn’t keep juggling childcare and commuting. I was oblivious. Life in the media is unrelenting and unpredictable. It’s why marriages are so often the fatality.
She wasn’t sure about marrying me, even though we had a child together.
I proposed the day after returning from three months away covering the Gulf War. She said she had trained herself over my many weeks of absence to live without me. The life she had created didn’t need me. Now she would have to go back to wondering and waiting. She didn’t know if she could keep doing that.
As ever, she was brutally honest.
My first proposal was pathetic. No planning. No ring. No romance. An afterthought after dinner at an average London restaurant. It had suddenly occurred to me I might lose her if I didn’t lock it down.
I deserved the refusal.
She changed her mind, and we adapted our lives so that they fitted together. But I know she didn’t forget the struggle of those early years. They stayed with her. Nothing really goes away.
I wish I’d been a better boyfriend and husband in those early days. I wish I hadn’t left her alone.
I guess I understand it better now that I am left with our kids and my thoughts. We still retained some of the old stereotypes as parents. I would get the call if they got a ticket or crashed the car. She would heal their hearts.
One year ago, we went to a fancy steak restaurant in the Cotswolds in the English countryside, where we had lunch. She wore a summer dress and we shared a bottle of champagne. Her cancer treatment was going okay. There was reason for hope. My life revolved around her. All around.
There was a poem inside her card. I wrote it on my typewriter. It was in lieu of a gift, but she said she had everything she wanted.
It seems like yesterday…
It’s May 18, 2025, and today’s my wedding anniversary.
I woke up this morning in another bed and another country.
And I didn’t buy a card.
Thank you for this. Wonderful writing.
Thank you Dave!